Mean Girls, Part 1/3
Today’s comic is near and dear to my withered black heart. That’s because a paladin just joined one of my groups. In that particular game, I’m the party necromancer. The two of us decided to try and make it work though. The only question was how we could both continue to do our mechanical thing without breaking the fiction of the game. I went to the Paizo forums for advice, and you can still read the full thread over there if you like. If you’d rather save some time, I’ll paraphrase a few of my favorite ideas from the brainstorm:
- Lie to the Paladin. What he don’t know can’t hurt him.
- Ask the GM to declare that necromancy isn’t evil in the setting.
- Get the paladin to play a similar class with a less restrictive code of conduct.
- Fall back on the loophole built into the rules: “Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil.”
- Have the paladin take the necromancer on as a long-term redemption project.
For those of you who made your Perception check, you might have noticed that this is comic 1/3 in a short series. We’ll have a chance to see which one of these methods Paladin and Necromancer choose over the next week. However, there is one method that deserves special attention:
- It’s impossible! A paladin would never willingly travel with a necromancer. YOU’RE HAVING BAD WRONG FUN!
In case the all-caps didn’t give it away, I take issue with this last stance. It’s clearly possible to invent a satisfying justification within the game world. It just requires a little flexibility and imagination. What do you say we wait until “Mean Girls, Part 2/3” to tackle this thorny subject head on? Let’s shall. See you then, kids!
THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!
This reminds me of my idea to play a “good” Necromancer at some point…
I ought to make an identity for this character beforehand, just so I’m prepared to play him/her.
The most important part of playing a necromancer isn’t forging a character identity: it’s getting the other players and GM to buy into the concept.
Let me know how it goes!
I’ve never understood the whole “necromancy is evil” thing. Unless you treat “evil” as a game construct rather than a moral one, I can’t see argument as to why skeleton farmhands would be evil.
I presume the “necromancy is evil” is typically founded in the setting-specific way of necromancy to work.
One often method for animation of the dead is by the use of deceased’s soul. In some cases it is destroyed, then it accounts for “denying the afterlife and total annihilation”, and most would think it is evil. In others it is enslaved inside the reanimated corpse, in that case it is approximately as evil as slavery. Some magical systems add that “the soul undergoes suffering, while inside the reanimated corpse”, adding to the evilness.
Alternatively, as as in some D&D settings, the undead corpses are animated by Negative Energy from the eponymous plane. The energies from this plane are defined as “evil”, so the undead creations are evil by nature. D&D5E: “When skeletons encounter living creatures, the necromantic energy that drives them compels them to kill unless they are commanded by their masters to refrain from doing so.” Granted, necromancer can say “but I am controlling them real well”, but still most would point out that she have actively increased the amount of “Evil” on her current plane of residence. Also, if she loses control or dies, would all those zombies run amok? In most D&D games they would.
Finally, setting can be extremely neutral about it and say that animation of the dead body is the same as animation of any other object. In that case there are indeed no moral repercussions. But it raises a question why would one use skeleton farmhands and not animated strawman farmhands. I would presume that bodies are harder to find.
Next fun fantasy ethics discussions: “Is it evil to enslave elementals in the golems?” and “Is it evil to rob the people of free will by enchantment spells?”
Evil Animation: Undead can be safely controlled. Simply give your undead standing orders to dismantle each other if control is not reasserted within 23.5 hours.
Skeletons vs Strawmen: Animate Dead is easier to cast and lasts much longer than Animate Objects. Non-corpse objects are really only useful for accomplish a task that is immediately at hand.
Enslaving Elementals in Golems: I’d say so. Slavers are evil in D&D, and my real-world morals agree.
Evil Enchantment: I think examples of Good Enchantment are few and far between. It’s all extremely invasive and mind-breaking.
Hmm… If Animate Dead functions differently than Animate Object, that would suggest that there IS something different about a corpse and another type of object. So that undermines that possibility. Though I guess you could say it’s just that bodies are built to house and obey souls, and so are more receptive to magic, and the necromancy spell is functioning as a replacement soul.
“Good” Enchantment, like “Good” Violence, is a matter of context. Ideally, it is temporary, necessary, nonlethal and the victim either is engaged in violence/evil or is at risk of hurting themselves or others. I think few people would argue that using the Jedi Mind Trick to get past a guard is more unethical than slicing him up with a lightsaber. Now, is mindjacking a goon to fight his friends worse than detonating a fireball in the middle of the group? That’s a question for the ages.
What you have to do is mindjack a good to detonate his fireball in the middle of his friends. Now you’re a winner on all accounts.
*goon
Excerpted from Dormninja’s Guide to Evil; Ch. 3 “Making Evil Work for You.”
Enslaving elementals in golems? I’d say that’s evil, on the basis that slavery would usually be considered evil.
Enchantment spells – charms I wouldn’t say are intrinsically evil; using magic to persuade someone to see you in a favourable manner doesn’t sound too bad depending on how you’re using it. Compulsion spells however are probably always evil, given that they totally rob a person of their free will.
My question – why isn’t cure wounds a necromancy spell if inflict wounds is? They both have to do with moving life energy around, which is basically what necromancy is. It’s not even that inflict wounds is an evil spell either (and practically speaking it’s no more evil than putting an arrow in someone in combat).
Now we’re getting into questions of positive and negative energy, and that’s a whole setting-specific ball of wax.
I would guess Pathfinder defines the necromancy school as “manipulation of negative energy” (the specific phrase is “of death, unlife, and the life force”), so Cure Wounds wouldn’t qualify. Pathfinder Inflict Wounds isn’t removing life energy so much as introducing life energy’s nonexplosive anti-matter equivalent.
I know 5e puts Cure Wounds under Necromancy and treats the school more like “manipulation of life energy of any sort”, which I agree makes more sense.
Umm, actually in D&D 5e healing spells like Cure Wounds, Healing Word, etc, are Evocation, not Necromancy.
Spare The Dying, Revivify, Raise Dead, (True) Resurrection are Necromancy, though, and hardly considered automatically Evil.
The Cure Wounds line was necromancy in AD&D since all spells dealing with life and death were necromancy.
3e (and by extension Pathfinder) pulled them into conjuration fluffing the change as pulling energy from the positive energy plane.
5e moved them again to evocation with similar fluff on the grounds that energy spells should be evocation, probably to avoid the Orb of Fire situation where a direct damage energy spell was fluffed as conjuring fire from the Plane of Fire and thus got to ignore spell resistance and immunity.
For whatever reason, Inflict Wounds stuck to necromancy despite the change to Cure Wounds.
Bear in mind that most spells of the compulsion subschool don’t actually compel anything and are along similar lines to the charm spells
Those are good points, but I think I can answer all 3.
First, d&d has an afterlife of some sort where souls go after death. This is part of why resurrection spells say “if the soul is willing and able”. The fact that animating skeletons has no such text means one of three possibilities. 1: it does not require the soul, 2: it forces the soul back into the body, or 3: the soul is destroyed. In the first case, no problem. In the latter two, I can use a 3rd level spell slot to mess with souls that have been claimed by gods.
Your second bit, about negative energy, is exactly what I mean by game construct. The negative energy plane is no more evil than the phenomenon of entropy, it has no ill-will towards anyone, destruction just happens to be it’s natural state.
Granted, a dead necromancer will still lead to uncontrolled and inherently violent undead, but this can be gotten around by just putting them on long chains out in the field. Steel is stronger than bone, so even if I lose control of them, the undead can’t leave the field.
Finally, although bodies are harder to find, animate dead is a 3rd level spell slot, while animate objects is 5th. The difficulty in finding someone who can cast the higher slot will often balance against the difficulty of finding corpses.
As to your questions, I would go with usually evil (enslaving sentient beings), and sometimes evil (there are cases where enchantment can act to jumpstart diplomacy in what would otherwise turn to violence).
In practice, I’ve always found “evil” to be less of an issue than “socially unacceptable.” Digging up the mayor’s nana so that she can fight orcs is a pretty good way to lose your hero contract with the municipality.
BUT SHE’S A HERO NOW TOO!
Why is the Mayor being so picky about this?
“Here take whatever you need! Just save us!”
And now that the orcs are gone, it’s just “You monster! That was a ‘Sacred’ temple you just destroyed using all of our lost loved ones!”
I mean, the orcs would have destroyed it too! And it’s not like they were doing anything with their dead…
Remember: The mayor isn’t real. It’s the narrow-minded jerk behind the GM screen that you’ve got to reckon with.
In my opinion, D&D alignments are actual things. Law and Chaos, Evil and Good are real, measurable attributes in their world, unlike ours. This is how the Detect Whatever spells work.
Basically Necromancy is Evil for the same reasons water is blue – fundamental laws of nature make it that way.
That’s… a really interesting concept. Actually that makes a lot of sense the more I think about it.
Pictured here: an ingot of Elemental Evil.
That’s my headcanon* too.
In a similar vein multitools, alphorns, and emmental cheese are inherently neutral and eating enough emmental will change your alignment to neutral even if you behavior is strongly lawful good or chaotic evil.
*One of my headcanons on the matter at any rate. The other possibility is that it’s evil because people think it is, what with belief being power on the planes, and as above so below, and so on and so forth et cetera et ceters
Ok. To those questioning the Necromancy is Evil thing in Golorian, the Pathfinder base setting, when you raise undead it rips a part of the body donor’s soul away from it’s whole, preventing it from having a peaceful afterlife and residing in whatever outer plane it morally matches.
However this is not my take.
I’ve heard this a couple of times, and finally worked up the motivation to go hunting for the source. I found this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/34gi4u/why_is_necromancy_evil/cqulvdo/
If there’s a more official source out there then my Google-fu has failed to find it. Did they ever codify this mess somewhere? Horror Adventures maybe?
From “The Great Beyond: A Guide to Multiverse”, p. 3:
“Generally speaking, non-intelligent undead such as zombies and skeletons possess no souls. Little more than puppets of flesh and bone, animated by negative energy in a warped attempt at life, these automatons have no attachment to the souls of their former owners, and are evil merely due to the corrupting influence of the Negative Energy Plane. (…)
The possession of a soul implies nothing about a being’s morality—after all, many demons of the Abyss originate as mortal souls. While many intelligent undead are evil, their alignment can often be seen as the result of the manner of their deaths, rather than the energies that animate their bodies or link them to the Material Plane.”
In conclusion: mindless undead are evil because of the Negative Energy. Intelligent undead may be (but don’t have to) be evil because their death experience made them so (or, in some cases, they were evil mortals to begin with). I also think that in some cases they might become evil as a result of choices made after becoming undead, e.g. ghouls – there may be nothing inherently evil about eating dead bodies, but if you kill to get those bodies, you become evil.
Now see, this is exactly what I’m talking about! That source comes from 2009 and is actually a 3.5 product. Paizo has quietly moved away from those ideas over the years, leaving me to wonder how seriously I ought to take them in a “canon Golarion” sense.
Taken at face value though, I think that’s a pretty solid way to handle it. Thanks for doing the research!
Once again people are forgetting aboot Investigation in favor of Perception.
“For those of you who made your Perception check, you might have noticed that this is comic 1/3 in a short series.”
Perception would let you see the 1/3, but Investigation would let you infer that it means this comic will be part of a series.
The only time i played an evil character, i claimed to the paladin i was good, but had been cursed by an devil to appear evil, they bought it.
The “lie to the paladin” option in practice! Were you able to carry on the charade long term, or was there ever a reckoning?
In 5e, you can easily play a non-evil Necromancer. Skeletons are the best undead, you can get for a very long time, and they don’t require humanoid bones at all. Just buy a bunch of animal bones from the local ranch, butcher, hunter, etc, and there you go.
Humanoid corpses, likewise, can be bought. When the DM gives you a bit of downtime in a town or city, you can likely do so with ease. Simply offer to pay poor folks for the corpses. The gold will easily cover funeral costs and then some, and the collection can be made afterwards. The surviving family of your corpse can take comfort in knowing that their soul has safely departed for the afterlife, and the body will be returned to the planet soon enough. It’s just being borrowed for a while.
A more hard-line, Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral method is to only make undead from the corpses of your enemies. The lives of those bandits and cultists were forfeit when they went down the path of evil anyway.
As for moralizing Paladins, they usually kill people too, so they can’t complain too much. One can easily point out that humanoids kill more humanoids than undead do, and that the evil can actually be put towards the purpose of good when they work for a non-evil Necromancer.
I think I had a greater point here, but I forget now.
So… “Zombies don’t kill people, people kill people”?
For me, the point is less “how do you justify this?” Clearly, you can come up with any number of arguments. The real concern is “how do you solve the problem when another player isn’t buying it?”
For example, I can imagine offering to “pay poor folks for the corpses” going over like a lead balloon in the real world.
“What are you so upset about? Your husband is dead, lady. Just take the twenty bucks and give me the body. Yeesh!”
It’d potentially work fine, for a start, people do donate their body and organs to science or medicine or whatnot
Secondly.. you don’t pay them when they’re dead. You give them the money before they die.. it’s a contract, like taking a second mortgage on your house. You get some cash to make your life better, they get your body to use for a contracted amount of time afterwards
Other than the morbid appearance, which could easily be solved by judicious use of robes, masks and other coverings.. there doesn’t seem to be much reason to be against undead workforces in society
To quote the imminent sage Charlie Brown, “Aaugh!”
Yes. Yes I agree with you. Those are all reasons that can make necromancy work in a game. They’re a lot of fun to come up with, and I enjoy seeing new ones. However, the ability to make plausible arguments isn’t the problem. The problem is other people coming up with plausible arguments of their own.
“The smell is unpleasant. There’s a public health hazard. The local Church of Uptight Jerkitude disapproves. The peasants are superstitious. The practice is capital-E Evil in the setting.”
This is less about inventing arguments than about getting the other people in your group to buy into them. In other words, there’s a reason that Necromancer is working on a PR campaign. She has a vision for the way the world works. So does Paladin. Therein lies the conflict.
“However, the ability to make plausible arguments isn’t the problem. The problem is other people coming up with plausible arguments of their own.”
I don’t think this is the problem either. Or rather, if this is your problem, then it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. If the rest of your players (not the characters, the players), aren’t willing to go along with your character concept, then you need to find a different concept. Otherwise you’re ruining everyone else’s game to suit your desires, and that’s just being a jerk.
Now, in the example you gave up above, you specified that you and the paladin’s player were both on board with the idea. In that case, use whatever excuse or justification everyone’s happy with, and it doesn’t matter what anyone outside the game says.
Also, if the paladin’s player is the only one who can’t live with having a necromancer in the party, and everyone else thinks it’s a cool idea, then maybe he should change his character. Having a PC leave the party rather than compromise his morals is a great story moment, and one that automatically sets up an interesting recurring character down the line.
That’s more or less what I was saying. Paladin et al are not just PCs in the context of Handbook. I guess this ins one of those places where the overlap between PC and player relationships can be hard to spot.
In 5e animating dead bodies IS considered a evil act, MoonshadowMask, so it is the similar as to other editions. I suspect you guys houserule some parts and have not noticed it.
In an online forum RP game I’ve been playing in lately, a character was trying to become a Lich, with the express purpose of replacing the god Vecna. When my Paladin was not on the front lines for the fight, a couple of the GMs argued that my Paladin should Fall, despite such an action not technically breaking my Oath of the Crown.
Their argument was that I should be eager to fight him solely because it was an evil undead creature, and that a Paladin should be the leader in such times. My argument for not taking any actions was that I actually hoped the Lich succeed in their plans. I’d rather have the Lich-God I know than the Lich-God I don’t.
In the case of a Paladin and a Necromancer in the party, it should take a lot of work on both parties to make it work. Necromantic magic in PF and 3.5 taint the caster’s soul, making them more Evil. It takes a lot of great Good actions and beliefs to keep the Necromancer from sliding. In a system where apparently the ends do not justify the means, it takes a lot of work for such a party dynamic to work.
I am eager to see how this turns out though.
Oh, and maybe carry a lot of scrolls of Atonement, just in case.
The necromancer in my IRL game is an Occultist. He gets magic circles as a class ability at 8th level. I plan to SPAM “magic circle against evil” (which is a good-aligned spell) often enough to counteract the evil of casting animate dead. It’s a bit of a cheesy workaround, but I plan to RP the crap out of it to ease my conscience. 😛
As for the strange bedfellows in today’s comic, I am particularly excited to see what Laurel does for Necromancer’s facial expressions in Parts 2 and 3. 😀
I like the idea of the Paladin being childhood friends with the Necromancer. The Paladin knows they aren’t evil, but their “speciality” in magic still gives them the hebejebes…
It would also open up the door to more RP between them. Arguments about who it would be “okay” to reanimate, etc…
I think the “Why?” Is probably the biggest question you should answer.
Actions and intent are two different things. Why is this person raising the dead? Why did they start down this path?
Then you can ask is their reason “Evil”?
And what is evil anyway? Quick! To the freshman philosophy seminar!
*Batman SFX*
I love the idea of the childhood friends. That’s what made Raistlin and Caramon so compelling. The characters were more important than the abstract idea of alignment, and that made for good fiction.
Never read the Dragonlance series.
Might have to pick it up.
okay so, i usually hate to shill stuff on other people’s website but these two stories are incredibly relevant (and good !) to your topic today Fauchard. Delete this if you find this rude but otherwise i suggest reading it
Part 1 : https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDGreentext/comments/64ltra/of_undead_and_understanding/
Part 2 :https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDGreentext/comments/6dhjd5/of_undead_understanding_the_dead_exodus/
Wow, I actually had a semi-related interaction in a game. Not with a paladin, but with a party druid – who also would have had a problem with necromancy, doubly since mine refused to raise humanoids or sentients – only animals or magical beasts. Early in the campaign, an interaction came up where the two were walking through a forest.
Druid: “Ahh, so glad to be out of that village. The woods were calling me.”
Necro: “I agree. The forest is the entire reason I became a necromancer!”
Druid: “…Explain?”
Necro: “The incredible speed of a skeletal wolf! The raw endurance of a zombified bear! The terror as shadowy owls rip out the eyes of my enemies or swarms of ghouled mice rip flesh from bone like horrific land piranha! How can humanoid corpses even begin to compare to that? Look around, listen to the forest – the wind through the leaves is the scream of a thousand insects. Every foot of the forest is slathered in death! It’s beautiful!”
Druid: “…Just can’t beat a good sunset from a cliffside, either.”
Necro: “Plus that pine smell – fresh and wonderful!”
The two ended up being that weird sort of friends – often found enjoying the same things but for entirely different reasons.
Well that’s awesome. Nice to see a druid take the side of “death is a part of life” rather than “zombies are a perversion of nature.” Teamwork FTW!
I once played a Chivalry Paladin Bowen, one notch up to the normal Paladin, together with a Necromancer. Went well, and i worked on the lawfull stupid front. In the End Bowen was guarding the Citizen against the “Life Mage” and was looking that he didn’t escapes in the night onto the cementary. So he got a stool sat himself into the Front of the Door of the Nekromancer… and on the next Morning he was moaning that another Skeleton Part joined their Party but what can he do when some lost soul decides to Follow the Life Mage, which was clearly in his Chamber, and never escapes onto the cementary over the Window !
And so on, was funny as hell. We had a Smart Necromancer and a not so bright Paladin. They stories are living on after nearly two Decades and very fond memories.
I think there’s an important distinction to be made between Lawful Stupid (“That old lady is jaywalking! Smite evil!”) and Lawful Oblivious. The latter is far more likely to play nice with evil, usually to hilarious effect.
Actually, now that I think of it, a very low Wisdom paladin who just wants to think the best of everybody could be a pretty amusing PC.
“They’re not evil. They’re just practicing their…umm…traditional folk remedies?”
*cultist chanting continues*
Necromancy is not evil, resurrection needs lots of practice.
that paladin should carry the name TwoFlower, as in PTerry‘s Discworld‘s first tourist.
The Necromancer was Neutral. So the Paladin checked him with detect Evil. He proved that the Necromancer was not Evil, and never caught him in an unlawfull act. And even defended him when the Townfolk called him evil. Then the Necromancer used a reversed Necromancing spell (Drain Life) and proved that he can heal. We had the Paladin, a thief, a Dwarven Fighter and the Necromancer no Cleric but two half Healer.
Was a great Group. Another memorable Scene was when the Halfling Thieve and the Necromancer were hanging on the Cloak of the Paladin when he stormed the Dragon Cave…
After that Episode the Necromancer has two reanimated Dragon Claws.
In 5e, skeletons and zombies both have minds and the ability to feel whatever people and animals can. True zombies are only somewhat smarter then your average animal, but skeletons are smarter then ogres and as smart as an ape, meaning they are full sentient. That means that its harder to be a good necromancer in 5e if you use skeletons because you are basically a huge slavemaster.
I realized this after making my own 5e necromancer who used primarily skeletons:). My dm and me had fun talking about this.
I mean… Can’t you pay them an (un)living wage?
Unless i realeased them from the magic, they would still just be slaves, and if I released them from the magic, they would likely try to kill me, or atleast run away because, for one thing, i’m making them go into highly dangerous situations, and for another thing, my guy was kinda psychotic.
Note that I wasn’t trying to make him good at all, this was an evil campaign, we just talked about the problems their sentience caused for good necromancers.
I find it curious that so many people seem to want to tell the Paladin that they have to be played like the Spanish-inquisition 90% of the time or they’re doing it wrong, but people seem to have much weaker convictions about the Necromancer. Why is alright for a Necromancer to be happy-go-lucky, not-evil-just-a-little-spooky, my-skeletons-volunteer-at-the-orphanage-every-Tuesday, and not ALSO be playing their class BadWrong?
Whenever there’s an “irreconcilable” difference between a good class and an evil class, no one ever seems to blame the EVIL half of that equation- it’s always the Good characters who get hated on for being forced to play as Lawful-meanie-pants.
I think you will appreciate the blog in Part 2. 🙂
So how much double-sided tape does Necromancer need to adventure in that dress, and what’s keeping that cloak on?
Necromancy is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be…unnatural.
Is double-sided tape a wondrous item in the vein of Sovereign glue being a riff on krazy glue?
While I’m at it, someone should make a riff on WD-40.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Oil%20of%20Slipperiness#content
“You paladins are into the whole justice thing, right? Well… think of this as a form of justice as well, and me as a jailer. These skeletons? Highwaymen and murderers. Those wraiths? Rapists. That giant zombie over there? Nasty piece of work he was. Bit a woman in half while her children were still watching.
Point is: we’re doing the same work. This is community service for evil souls… not to mention that I’m denying all sorts of fiends and dark deities fuel for their power.”
That’s worth a solid +4, maybe +5 or 6, on a diplomacy check, right?
My dude is a professional headsman. The tyrant king he killed in his backstory is his necromantic servant. I approve of this method.
Are they bot Blusthing? ARE THEY? This is so God Damn friggin adorable. Don’t take this lighlty because i rarely say this: I Ship it! This might be my Favorite Strip of this Handbook yet!
Also I agree compromise is Everything. D&D 5e Game
I also once played a Necromancer who had a Paladin in the Party. There were many Disputes. Not about Undead mind you. We got the Undead thing sorted out quickly: I would only ressurect Evil things we kill, and he would Destroy them after we were done clearing the Mission/Dungeon etc. In exchange the Paladin would be my Necromancers Bodyguard and vouch for him in Towns.
No we actually had quite a few Fights because my damn alcoholic Fae Spider Familiar (Think a Black Tarantula), kept hitting on his Monk Girlfriend, he kept squashing it. Resummoning takes so much friggin Time, and is annoying if you have to do it ten times a Day. Baal my Spider Familiar of course found this Hilarious. Damn Fae.
Could there be room for a 5th member of the Anti-Party? Stay tuned for Friday. :3
Also, I hope the dude was paying the 10 gp a pop in charcoal, incense, and herbs. Resurrecting familiars costs time AND money!
I am brimming with Anticipation! =)
He did not. But the DM handwaved any Material Components without having to pay them away unless it’s extraoridaly Expensive Stuff, so it didn’t cost my Character Money, just time and Nerves,… OOC All of us found the Familiar and the whole Situation quite funny.
Also if you follow Paladin’s eyes, he’s staring down her dress that’s apparently held on by necromantic magic.
I seem to recall in D&D (I can’t remember which iteration/s) that some healing spells were also classified as Necromancy; Is that an accurate recollection? Conflicts arose from the tension of alignment based (“Necromancy is Evil!”) casting and reviving one’s comrades (“Lazarus, come forth!”).
We had one character in a game sum it up as “foul sorcery” and “black magic” whenever magic was used against the character. He would inevitably make the sign preventing the Evil Eye. When the magic was worked to his benefit, however, it became the purview of the White Wizards.
Pictured here, that character encountering enemy magic.
I’ve got something similar that could happen since one of my players wanted to make a different character before starting the campaign. Mine’s one where it’s got a bunch of dragons in an empire with one leading it and his character chose the Dragon Casualty background (5e from Curse of Strahd background). So he’s looking for this dragon that’s ruined his life and home and while I first thought ‘Oh man, this is going to cause problems.’ I thought about it some more and figured I could do something similar like what the comic is about.
The dragon from his background is trying to make half-dragons loyal to him in addition to just being cruel since he’s a Black. The dragon emperor see this as a problem since other people could look at him and think the same of the empire as well as the Black dragon doing things he doesn’t want known, creating a reliable process to make half-dragons. The dragon emperor has been making a loyal army in secret for years and he doesn’t want anyone to know just in case there’s war.
I’m looking forward to how it’ll go, I was nervous at first but you can’t make an interesting story without tension of some kind.
You could always fall back on the metallic/chromatic distinction.
Why not just use a pork roast? That neatly sidesteps most of the issues. Why don’t necromancers operate out of the meat packing district?
Using the corpses of non-sentient creatures is the veganism of necromancy. It’s just not as satisfying! 😛
The Necromancy question is easy, my solution is being so evil that necromancy is the least evil of all the thing i do. I weaponized Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking in the dabate.
“Weaponized Murder” is a pretty good band name. I hope your paladin got a migraine.
I’m hoping it’ll go well for you, I’m very sympathetic about the whole Necromancer-in-a-Paladin’s-world thing.
I think it’s pretty restrictive and uncreative that animating dead is always evil by RAW in Golarion. It basically goes against the “letting the players choose their flavor” mindset that I always try to keep.
I basically had to make my own campaign and setting in order to play my Necromancer as an NPC, that’s a lot of work :p
Cheers! Amusingly, the arcanist in my party was inspired to take up necromancy as well. I guess he realized that not spending a full round action to summon your minions was a bit of a time saver.
Interesting conundrum between trying to stay true to a setting and wanting to make a concept work. I know I’d rather bend the existing setting than make my own, but that’s not exactly an option if you’re playing in a Society game, you know?
I don’t exactly have a paladin type situation going on, but I do have a type of necromancer currently in play. Though, instead of reanimation, she’s a necromancer who uses soul gems and soulbound constructs.
And everyone else in the party is OK with that?
Yes actually. This has to do with the fact that it’s less of a “Make an army of soulbound mind-controlled constructs” and more of “Revival, just different”. In fact, the only direct complaint I remember after the initial reveal was one of the party members complaining that I don’t gem our enemies and use them for crafting 😀
Fair ball then! So you actually transfer your fellow party members into new bodies when they die? I’m unfamiliar with this strat, so I’d love a link to the rules in question!
To be honest, the rules are extremely light on that end annoyingly, even though there’s at least 3 constructs based around the concept that a PC can craft.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/doll-soulbound/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/soulbound-mannequin/
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/soulbound-shell/
None of the PCs have died quite yet (some have gotten really close though), but the character has brought her little sister back in this way as a doll (which, actually, was the backstory reason she was trying to figure out how to build soulbound constructs in the first place).
Everyone is debating good vs evil and I’m just wondering how Necromancer’s arm bends. The one she’s handing him the button with seems…off.
Part of the stylistic inspiration for this comic is Adventure Time:
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/wvy1.gif
Or if that doesn’t float your boat:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/l/long-arm/
I can see Adventure Time in this. The only reason I even said anything is my wife is an illustrator and she’s always pointing out weird anatomy to me so now I can’t not see it. But with that view in mind I’m just gonna go with it. Freakin’ love the stuff you guys are putting out btw!
Cheers, Tim! I was a happy camper after my own illustrator wife finally got me to read this thing:
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X
Suddenly sequential art became more fun to think about. 🙂
There’s an old webcomic called Smitty Black that had a scene where a character sings a Disney-ish song about how the living and the living dead need to get along
https://mspfa.com/?s=1963&p=245
Hit the “next” arrow. It went about as well as could be expected, lol.
I automatically thought of the Grave domain from Xanathar’s Guide. Their whole thing is ‘Death is the natural counterpoint to life’. They’re even cool with raising the dead, as long as they aren’t SENTIENT undead using necromancy to pervert that natural order. You could totally play one as a magical mortician or a gravedigger (use Magic Initiate to get Mold Earth and/or Produce Flame to dispose of bodies). If you want a not-evil necromancer it’s the best route.
And here I thought fireball was the natural counterpoint to life. 😛
I checked it because i was interested, but unfortunately it says nothing about being cool with raising dead, and makes no distinction between sentient and not, so it is one opportunity lost, and needs to be house-ruled same as a necromancer.
I suspect that it comes from the line about not disturbing the dead being interpreted as not calling back the soul for necromancy some settings use.
“Ask the GM to declare that necromancy isn’t evil in the setting.”
I’ve seen this very solution to this very same conflict in game, and found it very problematic. Unless this had been a pre-established part of the campaign lore, it’s pretty unfair to tell all the other players what they are supposed to think about something, especially if they’ve previously made in character judgments in line with the assumed ethics of the setting. And if the DM intervention comes only after they’ve criticised their part member’s disgusting and unnatural behaviour, they can only come out of it looking like an idiot.
My own take on necromancy is generally to have taboos against the summoning of undead without their prior permission (see Elder Scrolls: Morrowind for a very nuanced take on Necromancy). But I would welcome, even encourage, a player who wanted to play necromancy with actual regard to cultural perceptions! Hell, thinking about it I’m tempted myself! I have little time for the likes of handbook-world Necromancer though. Also to be considered, aside from basic taboos, is that some undead are just disgusting. No one should ask their party to be OK with having the bloated drowned corpse of a child shuffling along behind them.
…
Going on a bit of a tangent here, but this does make me think of other issues of establishing what is and is not considered ethically OK in a setting. I think it’s up to the DM to decide, but where they differ from the modern norm they should be clear and consistent about it from the beginning (or at least from when a given issue first arises). A major one for me is slavery – a very complex societal element that has been normal in one form or another for almost all of human history, and I want to reflect that in settings I create.
Resurrection is a Necromancy spell.
Still, wizards who turn themselves into Liches are the ones who decided to take the easy way out of the dying part. Clone exists for a reason and, get this, you can make your clone be as young as you want.
My dad played an undead-hating ranger once. Turns out, two of the other players were playing necromancers. He changed characters as soon as was convenient. Moral of the story: Talk with your table before choosing characters.
Oh, and I just remembered another campaign where one player played an oracle of an undead-hating god and another decided to play an intelligent skeleton who didn’t realize he was undead. By which I mean he commented on how implausible his survival was within seconds of meeting the party. And refused to believe the party when they asked him to remove his helmet and pointed out the obvious.
It worked out well, since the party was down a member due to old Galaxy-Brain having some RL…legal issues that kept him out of the game indefinitely, meaning the party was down a meatshield just as they were invading an enemy base. But when that was over, they only convinced the oracle to back down when they assigned the skeleton to guard an evil artifact for the rest of forever.
…though our resident evil character intends to take that artifact after the campaign ends.
I had one sequence where I was the “paladin” in this situation. Basically, we were playing a game in a homebrew setting, and in this setting werecreatures were considered abominations against the animal patron spirits of the local empire and hunted. My character, however, was a noble from the House of the Wolf, which meant that I had a particular and overpowering hatred for werewolves. Late in the campaign, a new player joins the group, and sure enough her character’s a werewolf.
First thing I did was talk to her OOC and confirm that she knew about my character’s hatred of werewolves. When she confirmed that she did, I decided that, since the new character had been recommended by the princess who was my character’s childhood friend (and who had just done me a huge favor), my character would subconsciously refuse to believe that this new PC could be a werewolf, and would ignore any clues unless the werewolf did something absolutely impossible to deny. Worked out pretty well.
Our PF2e party has one Cleric of Pharasma (aka the goddess of death/souls) and one Skeleton Investigator investigating his own death (and the death of the Alchemist whose player left due to repeated schedule conflicts).
Our cleric openly stated he would tolerate the skeleton, because he didn’t choose to be returned as one–so long as he didn’t overstay his welcome outside the River of Souls, of course. Said skeleton also didn’t exactly hide what he is from the party, although he does hide it in public.
It’s not quite the same situation (Pharasma explicitly condemns “raising undead” necromancy), but it does seem related. It does seem like it’ll be a fun party dynamic, I can say that much.